Murray calls for debate on raising the minimum wage in Massachusetts

As the Senate prepares to consider tax increases on Massachusetts residents and businesses to fund transportation, Senate President Therese Murray on Thursday opened the door to the possibility of her support for raising the state’s $8 per hour minimum wage.

By Matt Murphy

The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA

By Matt Murphy

Posted Apr. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Apr 11, 2013 at 11:13 AM

By Matt Murphy

Posted Apr. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Apr 11, 2013 at 11:13 AM

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As the Senate prepares to consider tax increases on Massachusetts residents and businesses to fund transportation, Senate President Therese Murray on Thursday opened the door to the possibility of her support for raising the state’s $8 per hour minimum wage.

Murray appeared before the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on Thursday morning, delivering a speech to business leaders that touched on familiar themes of transportation financing and her more recent call this session to reform the welfare system to make it easier for recipients to transition off public assistance into the workforce.

The Plymouth Democrat, however, softly approached the topic of a wage increase, referencing a recent Massachusetts Economic Independence Index report that showed a $12,000 a year gap between a minimum wage salary and what is required for a single adult to be “economically independent.”

“The growing gap between income and the cost of living is significant in Massachusetts and we need to have a serious conversation about what a living wage is for residents living in the Commonwealth,” Murray said.

“Let’s start that conversation today,” she said, before asking audience members rhetorically what they considered to be a living wage.

Five years have elapsed since the minimum wage in Massachusetts last increased in January 2008 to $8 an hour, still one of the highest wage floors in the country. Connecticut and Vermont have higher minimum wages in New England, at $8.25 and $8.60 per hour respectively.

The Legislature has not voted on a minimum wage increase since 2006, when it phased in the escalation over two years and overrode a veto by Gov. Mitt Romney to do so. Sen. Marc Pacheco has filed a bill this session to raise the wage to $11 an hour over three years, and tie future increase to inflation to retain the wage’s purchasing power.

Business leaders, however, warn that raising the minimum wage could have a chilling effect on hiring, and Jon Hurst, of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts, recently told the News Service it would be more appealing for the federal government to address the minimum wage.

Murray noted that both Maine and New York have recently enacted laws to raise their minimum wages to $9 by 2016. By finding a suitable “living wage,” Murray said, “We will support our growing economy, give our residents more to spend and this change will serve as a big step forward in helping our residents lead successful and self-sustaining lives in the Commonwealth.”

Murray cushioned the talk of raising the minimum wage before the business crowd with a call for unemployment insurance reform, both celebrating and bemoaning the fact that lawmakers in recent years have routinely voted to freeze rates that pay jobless benefits to forestall an increase on businesses.

Though reporting that the trust fund is “healthy,” Murray said the current unemployment insurance system is “too narrow and not sensitive enough” to employers with either very good or very poor employment records.

Page 2 of 2 - “We need to look at ways to ease the burden of our unemployment insurance system on smaller and new businesses,” Murray said, suggesting tourism-based businesses that hire many seasonal employees are not properly accounted for either.

In earlier speeches this year, Murray has put welfare reform on the top of her priority list, returning to a cause that she led as a younger lawmaker in 1995. She has said that too many waivers are being granted to benefit recipients that allow or incentives them to stay on public assistance and not transition to work, a problem that spurred the welfare reform efforts during the early 1990s.

In her remarks Thursday, Murray said Department of Transitional Assistance officials should “shift their focus” and resources to education, job training and work placement while increasing assistance for high-risk recipients like teen parents.

Gov. Deval Patrick and legislative leaders are currently tangled in a standoff over how high to raise taxes to create a sufficient and sustainable funding source for the state’s aging and underfunded transportation system. The House on Monday approved a bill raising $500 million in new revenue from higher taxes on cigarettes, gas and businesses, and the Senate is gearing up to consider a similar bill as soon as Saturday.

Murray, in her speech, expressed confidence that new revenue would be available for transportation despite Patrick’s threat to veto the bill moving through the Legislature, saying “we know that our transportation system will have more revenue.”

The Senate President, however, dismissed the idea of raising the income tax, and said the deductions Patrick proposed to eliminate on items such as scholarships and home mortgages would have “deep and biting effects” on residents around the state.

“There is a growing disconnect between state government and the people. We need to focus on regaining the trust of the people of Massachusetts by showing them how their money is being spent and that each dollar is going as far as it can,” Murray said.

Murray also endorsed taking a closer look at the opportunities available for transportation projects through public-private partnerships.

The News Service reported late last year that an unnamed developer had submitted an unsolicited proposal to MassDOT proposing to widen a 9-mile stretch of Route 3 from Braintree to Norwell to add a third, high-occupancy toll lane in both directions.